Bassarath calls for revitalised Guaracara Park

​T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath is call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to re­vi­talise Guaracara Park, a his­toric crick­et venue lo­cat­ed in Pointe-a-Pierre.

The fa­cil­i­ty, for­mer­ly part of Petrotrin’s es­tate and now un­der Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings, sits near the com­pound of the closed oil re­fin­ery. It last host­ed a top-lev­el match in 2013—a T20 fix­ture be­tween T&T and Cana­da.

​The venue has re­turned to pub­lic dis­cus­sion fol­low­ing an an­nounce­ment late last year by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that fetes and cul­tur­al events would no longer be ac­com­mo­dat­ed at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do or oth­er state-con­trolled sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

​Bas­sarath re­newed his ap­peal yes­ter­day dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va, where the venue was of­fi­cial­ly un­veiled as the home of the T&T Red Force.

​“I be­lieve Guaracara Park holds tremen­dous his­tor­i­cal val­ue,” Bas­sarath said. “As I men­tioned in my speech, it has played a sig­nif­i­cant role not on­ly in crick­et but al­so in ath­let­ics and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties.”

​The vet­er­an ad­min­is­tra­tor not­ed that the venue has long been as­so­ci­at­ed with ma­jor chut­ney shows and crick­et match­es, sug­gest­ing that any re­de­vel­op­ment project should be han­dled in­de­pen­dent­ly of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings. He al­so re­called that the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion had in­di­cat­ed plans to up­grade the fa­cil­i­ty be­fore leav­ing of­fice.

“At a sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Pa­lo Seco some years ago, the for­mer gov­ern­ment stat­ed that Guaracara Park would be their next project. I hope that vi­sion comes to fruition, be­cause I would re­al­ly like to see mean­ing­ful de­vel­op­ment take place there. It is al­so a very ac­ces­si­ble venue in terms of trans­porta­tion,” Bas­sarath said.

High­light­ing its rich sport­ing his­to­ry, Bas­sarath point­ed out that Guaracara Park host­ed 75 first-class match­es be­tween 1960 and 2011, of­ten draw­ing strong crowds.

“I re­mem­ber Mr Omar Khan speak­ing about a T&T ver­sus Guyana match that was com­plete­ly sold out,” he said. “I can al­so re­call a North-South match in 1996 fea­tur­ing Rangy Nanan for the South and Bri­an Lara for the North. On the very first morn­ing, the ground was packed.”

In ad­di­tion to crick­et, Guaracara Park has host­ed a va­ri­ety of sport­ing events and cul­tur­al show­cas­es, in­clud­ing the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion for sev­er­al years.

While the NCC has now been des­ig­nat­ed as the home of the Red Force, it will not host First-Class match­es. Bas­sarath ex­plained that the fa­cil­i­ty does not cur­rent­ly meet the re­quired stan­dards.

“We would have loved to stage match­es here at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre, but the out­field is not sand-based,” he said.

“The cost of in­stalling a sand-based out­field is es­ti­mat­ed at around $4 mil­lion, which is a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment to bring the venue up to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.”